Google Analytics

[Chris]

I'm finally able to use this service, and its great.

I still find a desire to get a raw listing of top referrers, but other than that Google's system is great. Just the archival data is great, I have to erase my logs every other day more or less or the files get too big, this means I'll be able to see traffic totals over a longer period of time.

They do have robust search referrer tracking though, breaking things down by engine and showing you what your most popular search terms are. They also have what amounts to more or less a heatmap of where people are clicking on your site. Thats pretty useful.

It has loads of features for ecommerce site owners or other people who want to track conversions, most of these features will be lost on content webmasters, but its no big deal.

Right now it looks like one option they need is a favorite reports list that people can customize.

I only just started using this, when I get more time into it I'll probably write a long review, but until then I can say it looks like its definitely worth the effort to get in.

[Emancipator]

i had never noticed the heat map before. I never did fully explore google analytics. Very impressive.

[Chris]

also... if your analytics account is separate from your adwords... you could give access to it to a potential buyer if you're selling a site. It should have all the information they'd need.

[AndyH]

The site overlay option is sorta new it seems (month or two). Wasn't there when I was using it.

[Masetek]

Yeah I finally got my invitation code a few days ago. Pretty impressive. I have noticed a huge difference in pageviews and visitors between google and awstats. Anyone else noticed that?

Yeah I like how you can see not only where the visitor came from but how many pageviews etc the did. So far by the looks of it, visitors that come from MSN have the most pageviews (20+) where as google is only about 7.

[Westech]

also... if your analytics account is separate from your adwords... you could give access to it to a potential buyer if you're selling a site. It should have all the information they'd need.

I think that you can create a separate user account and give it limited read-only access to just certain sites' reports. I think you could do this securely whether your adwords account was linked in or not, but I'd recommend testing it out first before sending the password! info here: https://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=26916&hl=en_US

[r2d2]

I guess I should really take a look at Google Analytics - does this link with AdWords mean I can use Google Analytics since I have an AdWords account? Or do I still need a Google Analytics invite thing? If so, does anyone have one they would like to send me? :)

Edit: Just tried signing in with my Google Account, and it says I do need an invite..

[Masetek]

I just found out why my stats were out compared to AWStats, its not tracking my forum. Has anyone added the google analytics code to vb forums and got it to work? I edited GENERIC_SHELL template and added it before the </body> tag but its not liking it.

Suggestions?

[James]

I love the heatmap feature; it's so neat, and infinitely useful. However, I don't believe it tracks AdSense ads, which would add multitudes of usefulness for improving ad position optimization.

Masetek, you should make sure that your code validates properly; it could be that the browsers are simply unable to run it due to some issue with the HTML code on your page.

[Blue Cat Buxton]

Wow, that heat map is good; I hadn't spotted it before

[Chris]

I just found out why my stats were out compared to AWStats, its not tracking my forum. Has anyone added the google analytics code to vb forums and got it to work? I edited GENERIC_SHELL template and added it before the </body> tag but its not liking it.

Suggestions?
I would put it in the generic footer in the style options area.

[Westech]

Is your forum running on a separate subdomain? If so you'll have to do a little extra setup to make things track properly: http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=27268

[fredarn]

I cant get Google analytic to work, i have places the html-code in the footer on my WordPress webpage (http://golfsiden.net)

Where should i place it? What should i fo to make it work?

[Masetek]

I guess I should really take a look at Google Analytics - does this link with AdWords mean I can use Google Analytics since I have an AdWords account? Or do I still need a Google Analytics invite thing? If so, does anyone have one they would like to send me? :)

Edit: Just tried signing in with my Google Account, and it says I do need an invite..

Here's an invite...ask this guy :)

[Masetek]

I would put it in the generic footer in the style options area.

I'll give that a go & see what happens.

It's on the same domain Westech :)

[r2d2]

Here's an invite...ask this guy :)


?? Which guy?

[James]

This heatmap thing's so damned nifty. I think I'll start really making use of it; exploring the space of the page. It helps you see exactly where your visitors are looking on the page, and sometimes helps you figure out why.

I just wish that they'd use colors instead of a bar stretching from left to right... I don't know why.

[Sean]

Sounds nifty, signed up. How long does it usually take to get your invitation code?

[James]

Mine took a few months, actually.

I've just put it on four more of my sites--a bit limiting to only allow five websites, though.

[Masetek]

?? Which guy?

LOL sorry, it was late...

http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/mb/joeblstrn?forum=42783

[JasonN]

I've been using Analytics for a few weeks and it's really cool. I've been using a javascript to track my AdSense conversions, too.

My biggest complaint about Analytics is that some of the most interesting stats would be the percentages (conversion percent by referrer, etc), but the list is near meaningless from all my 100% 1-visitor 1-conversion entries. Sure I can list the top 500 and visually sort them out, but that kind of defeats the point. I would like a way to set a meaningful sample size for those percentages so I can generate a really useful list quickly.

I looked into the custom reports but didn't see any way to do that.

[Giles]

LOL sorry, it was late...

http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/mb/joeblstrn?forum=42783

It's a small world. I have been doing quite a lot of posting on Mr-Seo's "Message Board". He has a great podcast!

[Masetek]

It's a small world. I have been doing quite a lot of posting on Mr-Seo's "Message Board". He has a great podcast!

I found his podcast through you. You mentioned it here. Its not too bad. His cats are funny as.

[Giles]

Then it's not a small world, I just have a large influence. I have listened to them from the start, they are a lot better now that "Alan" has joined the fun.